Ex Eternit chief might face charges

Govt pledges to change statute of limitations

(ANSA) - Rome, November 20 - Prosecutors in Turin have
completed a homicide probe into former Eternit owner Stephan
Schmidheiny and are set to press charges over 263 deaths, ANSA
sources said Thursday.
That comes one day after Italy's highest appeals body, the
Court of Cassation, overturned an 18-year prison sentence
against the Swiss tycoon, whose now-defunct Eternit ran several
asbestos cement plants blamed for more than 2,000 deaths in
Italy.
Grieving families of victims, outraged over Wednesday's
supreme court decision, took hope from the new case as well as
from government pledges on Thursday to change the statute of
limitations law that led to the annulment of the sole conviction
in the asbestos environmental disaster.
Schmidheiny had been charged with failing to provide
adequate safety measures at the plants, but the high court said
the case had timed out.
In a statement Thursday, the Cassation Court added its
remit was to deal only with the issue of the 1986 asbestos
environmental disaster rather than with illnesses and deaths.
The objective "was to ascertain whether or not the disaster
occurred," the Court said in a note.
Premier Matteo Renzi meanwhile said he would change Italy's
statute of limitations, a promise supported by leaders of the
Lower House and Senate who said they reached an agreement on the
procedure for moving Renzi's bill through parliament.
"If a case like Eternit is a timed-out crime, then we have
to change the rules of the game on the statute of limitations,"
Renzi told the RTL radio station.
"We can't have the nightmare of the statute of limitations
(in these cases). You cannot deprive people of the demand for
justice," Renzi said.
"I was struck, as an ordinary citizen, by the interviews
with the families (of the victims). They made me shudder a
little".
About 150 people belonging to an Eternit victims group
protested Wednesday outside the Cassation Court including many
from Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, and others from different
regions of northern Italy as well as people from Switzerland and
Brazil.
Their leader Romana Blasotti, 85, lost five family members
to asbestos-related diseases, which can often take many years to
appear.
One of the most common diseases, mesothelioma, can take
decades after contamination to make itself known, making
liability hard to prove.
"We want justice, and we believe that we will have it,
after 35 years of struggle," said Blasotti, whose husband died
in 1983, followed by a sister, a niece, a cousin and a daughter.
"When we started our battle, we knew we had to do it for
our young people...but we did not succeed. The death rate in
Casale continues at a rate of 50 to 60 deaths per year," she
said.
Asbestos-linked tumours have been reported among Eternit
staff, their families and people living near the factories who
were affected by asbestos dust in the air, while hundreds more
fell ill.
Employees and their families have long claimed that Eternit
did little or nothing to protect its workers and residents
living around its factories from the dangers of asbestos.
The Italian National Magistrates Association (ANM) said
Thursday that it has been calling for Italy's statute of
limitations laws to be changed for years.
"Magistrates have been raising the problem of the statute
of limitations for years", Rodolfo Sabelli of the ANM said.
Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini and Senate Speaker
Pietro Grasso reached an agreement on how to proceed with a bill
changing Italy's statute of limitations, officials said.
"I confirm there is an agreement about this between the
speakers of the House and Senate," said Deputy Senate Speaker
Maurizio Gasparri during a debate on the Eternit case.
He added that the bill will be examined first in the House.